They Noticed
by LivelyStevens
Summary: Mac calls the team together to make an announcement. Set possibly after Green Piece. About D/L relationship.


Mac sent out a message to the closest members of his team and told them to gather at a local restaurant around 6:30 for dinner. He did it every so often after a rough case, or if there was something going on. The last time they all got together like this was after Sid got out of the hospital from his radiation poisoning and that was over six months ago.

Mac looked around the large round table the hostess had set for them. This group had become his family. These were the people he leaned on. This group hadn't changed much over the last few years other than adding a couple of people and their closeness had become stronger. Sid and Sheldon Hawkes were chatting about a new piece of equipment that was installed in the ME's office. Stella and Adam were talking about the progress a little boy from an earlier case was having in his sessions with a therapist. The case really touched Adam and the two kept in contact. Around the other side of the table Flack and Angell were off in their own little world riling each other up and talking about cases they'd worked and pushing each other's buttons at the same time. The only two missing were Danny and Lindsay. Two chairs opposite him at the circular table world be theirs to fill. They were almost together on cases and they always gravated to one another in the lab.

Mac wanted to wait for everyone to get there before he'd made the announcement, but they'd been there fifteen minutes already and he wasn't going to wait much longer. He figured that they'd gotten hung up and would come in any minute. Trying to stall a bit longer he waved to the waitress and ordered a couple of appetizers. As soon as she left the table he stood up and got everyone's attention.

"I really wanted to wait for everyone to get here before I started, but I'm not going to wait anymore. When Danny and Lindsay get here, we can fill them in on what we've talked about." He smiled a bit and took a deep breath. "Stella and I were requested at the courthouse as witnesses today." He paused to take another breath before continuing.

"I didn't know there was a case of trial that you worked on." Flack mentioned looking first at Angell then to Hawkes to see if either of them had a clue as to what case Mac was talking about.

"It was really a last minute thing." Mac tried to ease some of confusion and concern.

"What's going on?" Hawkes questioned.

"Mac and I weren't there on a case; we were there to witness a marriage ceremony in a judge's chamber."

"Really, who got married?" Adam questioned.

Mac held his hands out to the group and held his arms out as if to say 'look around.'

Flack caught and sat up in his chair. "No way." Angell smiled at him.

"What?" Adam asked hoping someone was going to explain.

"They really did it?" Hawkes asked relaxing into the back of his seat.

"It's about time." Sid finished

"Will someone please help me catch up?" Adam was still lost.

Flack looked at Adam, "Danny and Lindsay for married and Stella and Mac were the witnesses."

"Wow." Was all the other man could come up with.

"Yeah, Sid's right, it's about time." Flack said.

Adam was lost again. "What do you mean its about time. Didn't they just get together about eight months ago?"

All eyes focused on Adam. "Are you kidding me? They've been dancing around each other for longer than that." Flack was gob smacked. "How could you miss that?"

"When did you notice Flack?" The detective in Stella came through in her question.

"I could tell something was there when she got back from Montana after testifying. We were on that case about wine and the jeweled roach and there were definite vibes going on between them. The way they teased and talked to each other was different. I always wondered what happened that day he flew out there."

"He flew out to Montana?" Shock in Sid's voice, but the others looked it.

"Well, yeah." Flack thought everyone knew that he made that trip. "The last days Linds testified, during the Luke Blade case, Mac told him to take the day." Mac nodded, remembering Danny to take the next day off after Danny set his arm on fire for the case. "Well, he took his day in Montana. He caught the last flight back to the city that night after she was done. He was sooo tired the next day."

Stella looked at Mac. "I remember him working on that case. He was tired before he left. I told him I could finish and he could head home and get some sleep. He said he was fine and we finished working."

"He'd worked a shift, testified before a grand jury, and then started on the Luke Blade case. I think he was trying to stay busy until she got back." Mac said thinking back and seeing the whole situation differently.

"She left him a card." Hawkes piped up out of the blue and staring at his glass. He focused up at the faces looking at him for more information. "She left him a card four weeks before he flew out to be with her. She asked me to make sure he found it."

Mac grinned thinking back. "He found it and whatever she wrote put a huge smile on his face. He still had it in his hand when I stepped in to check on lab results." Mac added.

"I think this goes back further." The conversation kept moving with Stella. "Do you remember the jewelry heist case? The one with the three girls dressed like the Breakfast at Tiffany's." Heads nodded all around. She looked off into the distance thinking and bringing the memories to the surface. "I was there when we apprehended the suspects. Danny had only one thing on his mind and that was getting to Lindsay. He had no other plan in that room other than to get to her and make sure that she was okay. And the two of them clung to each other like there was no tomorrow. The look in his eyes was so filled with emotion and love and relief."

The group quieted down for a moment. Each of them were thinking back into their memories of the moments that might define the relationship between Danny and Lindsay.

"They left together the night that you and I stayed with Flack in the hospital." Stella nodded in Mac's direction.

"Did you guys notice how much effort and money Danny put into that $5 bet with Mac?" Flack rested his elbows on the table and folded his hands together in front of him.

"What $5 bet?" Sid asked.

Hawkes mimicked Flack position at the table, "Danny and I were had this case about crazy cuisine. Each night the chef chose a different crazy thing to incorporate into his meals: octopus, spiders, millipedes, and so on. He actually ate one of those millipedes while we were talking to the chef." Sheldon paused to shutter at the memory.

"I bet Danny in casual conversation that Lindsay would have eaten it no problem also, just as he had. He bought one of about everything from the company and covered the break room table with it. It must have cost him a fair amount."

Flack took over. "We all stood around the table. Lindsay was sitting there already. Danny explained what it all was. Sid, most of this stuff was still moving. She dug right in as if it were fried chicken. It was not pleasant." He threw a look in Angell's direction to show her how gross it really was.

"They showed up at Cozy's one night before the bug dinner." Mac mentioned almost whispering.

"What's Cozy's?" Angell sat up to the table almost shoulder to shoulder with Flack trying to get closer.

Not sure if Mac was ready to publicize his Wednesday night music gig, Stella decided to answer, "Cozy's is Mac's hiding place where he goes to get away from the job. Were they together?" She looked back at Mac and saw appreciation in his eyes.

"Yes, he met her there. I don't know what the situation was, but they stayed quite a while." He smiled at a thought that came into him mind and looked around at the group. "None of you worked the "subway surfer" case. Danny found a body on the tracks on his way home from an 18 hour shift. I came from the Mayor's fundraiser and Lindsay showed up from coming from the Opera. When Danny took one look at Lindsay dressed up, I thought I might have to scrape his jaw from the tracks as he watched her approach. He even stood up to greet her."

Sid, who's only added a few comments and questions added his own observation. "I could tell something was going on with _him_ when he started calling her 'Montana.' It was started as teasing, but it turned into his way of calling her 'honey,' or 'sweetie' at work. Lindsay and I were talking and she asked if I thought that Danny called her 'Montana' because she was a 49ers fan, and I told her it was because he had a crush on her."

"He called her 'Montana' the first day she got here when he came to bring results to us in reconstruction." Mac remembered.

Adam took all of this in. "You mean the beginnings of something might have been there all the way back the beginning? How did I miss that?"

"At least as far back as the 'walrus documentary.'" Hawkes chimed in.

Stella almost spit out the sip of water she had just taken.

Mac scratched the back of his head, "Um, what? Walrus documentary?"

Adam laughed and nodded his head. "I remember that."

"You want to fill the rest of in?" Stella tried to take another drink.

Hawkes leaned back and folded his arms across his chest. "We were working a case where a weather lady was killed in the park. We found a video tape in her apartment that was trashed. Adam used his skills," Hawkes pointed to him and Adam took a small bow, "and fixed the tape so that it was watchable. It was labeled 'Walrus Documentary'."

"But that's not what was on the tape." Mac assumed.

"No…" Hawkes kept going. "It was a tape of the weather lady and her producer checking on a lot more than the forecast. Lindsay walked by the A/V lab and heard the noises coming from the TV and saw the three of us standing there watching the tape. She backed up and came in. She teased Danny and asked if it was footage from his 30th birthday party."

"She'd only been here for a few weeks and was already putting Messer in his place. I knew I liked that girl for a reason." Flack threw across the table nodding his head.

The table then became quiet. Each of them lost in thought about when this romance started. Quiet conversations started back up. They snacked on the appetizers that were delivered. No one noticed the newly married couple enter the restaurant or approach the table, but they noticed the quietness of the party.

"Oh God, who died?" Lindsay asked holding onto Danny's hand a little tighter.

They all looked up and saw the happy couple standing near the table. The mood changed immediately and hugs, well wishes, congratulations, kisses, handshakes, hearty pats on the back and a few small gifts were exchanged. The team settled back into their chairs. The waitress approached and took their orders and disappeared once again.

"Sorry we're late. We took the scenic route." Danny filled them in. Each one of them understood. "What'd we miss?"

"We were just tryin' to figure out when all this started." Flack waved his hand between the two of them.

"You got nuttin' better to do with your spare time?" Danny's eyes flashed to Angell instantly and then back to Flack and smiled at him."

"I'm curious. How did all of this come about?" Stella questioned

"That's a hard question to answer." Lindsay supplied. "He annoyed me for a while." She said looking at him closely. "But then the annoyance became cute, charming, and part of the day." The look in her eyes said that he was in for it. She was going to bring up each and every little thing she could use against him. "He held my hand a little too long when we were talking about grip during the doll case. When he carried me across the rooftop at the water tower case I could feel it in the way he held me."

"You told me 'to make tracks cowboy.'"

Danny's chin went to on his chest, hopefully hiding the blushed that she was causing. "He offered to drive me home the night that Flack was in the hospital without any hint of giving me a hard time. I saw the look in his eyes when he came after me in the diamond heist case. He then finally asked me out."

He head whipped up and he looked at her. "Yeah, but you stood me up for that date. No call, no text, no nothing."

She continued like nothing had been said. "Life started getting in the way with the case out in Bozeman. All that was coming back and I needed to deal with the past before I got to the future."

He whispered, "If there's anything you need just let me know." He kissed the back of her hand and rested it on his leg.

"Then a few months later he showed up in a Montana courtroom right in the middle of the hardest thing I have ever had to do in my life. That was the best timing I have ever seen anyone have."

"Is that where it all started?" Stella was wrapped in the romance of it all.

"Stupid reporters." He murmured from his spot. She laughed and bumped his shoulder with hers.

"No, he left me in Montana for a few more days to wrap things up. When I got back it didn't take long for the banter to start. Out first official date was the night before the big cocaine bust. We had a few drinks and shot a couple games of pool." She shot a glance to Danny remembering that night.

"From what I remember, you told me that Lindsay had some personal stuff to deal with so you switched shifts." Mac pointedly looked at Danny.

"Yeah, well, I lied. I let her sleep in that morning." He grinned at his boss. He thought back to that morning when he woken with Lindsay in his arms and the note he left her when he decided to switch shifts.

"So you two have been having this relationship this whole time." Adam responded looking between the two.

Danny took the story over and played with the fingers intertwined with his on his leg and hung his head a bit before starting to talk. "Things between us got really shaky when Ruben died." Lindsay squeezed Danny's hand under the table. "You all noticed how it affected me. I pushed Lindsay away; said and did some really stupid things that I can never take back. But it took a while and we worked slowly back to what we had and now we are about a month away from a baby and we're married."

The table grew quiet again. Each were thinking about the day's events.

"It finally happened to you, you know." Mac thought back to a conversation he had with Danny at a scene. Danny remembered it vividly. He and Mac were standing over a dead bride to be and Danny was mocking the idea of the wedding service the hotel had. He looked down at the hands folded together in his lap.

"What marriage?" Danny filled in looking up.

"Love." Mac continued.

"Don't even say stuff like that Mac, it's not funny." He smiled at the man in front of him.


End file.
